One Month In, Malaysia Off to a Shaky Start
Frightened of the Islamists, majority wants this government to work
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s shaky new ruling coalition government will have been in power for a month today but, according to political analysts in Kuala Lumpur, looks likely to stay there at least in the medium term despite its minority status because, in the words of one observer, “everybody’s scared shitless of PAS and Muhyiddin.”
Muhyiddin is Muhyiddin Yassin, the powerful 75-year-old leader of the Malay nationalist minority Perikatan Nasional coalition, who staged an unsuccessful last-ditch fight to form a government. Perikatan holds 74 of the 222 parliamentary seats. The biggest bloc within Perikatan, however, is the 50 held by the rural Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS, whose leader Abdul Hadi Awang has fought for decades to implement sixth-century Shariah religious law in the moderate Muslim country and whose international affiliates are the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East.
Outside the deeply rural north and east of the country, which appears caught in time, the modern, moderate urban areas want nothing to do with Shariah law. And, given the concern over the encroachment of Islam, internationally the west behind the scenes is pushing for this government to work. PAS is also handicapped by very real reports of deep corruption in its ranks at the same time it pushes for archaic sexual and civil laws.
“There are no real sound policies in the new government yet,” said a longtime political analyst. “There is a lot of rhetoric and political trash-talking. They’re mostly inexperienced and don’t know what to do. But there are a lot of people trying to make sure this bloody government works. They are willing to close one eye to see them succeed.”
Most of the new governing coalition’s pretensions toward reform have been tarnished with the arrival as deputy premier of Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the United Malays National Organization president who faces 45 counts of criminal breach of trust, abuse of power, and money laundering involving US$25.7 million in funds looted from Yayasan Akalbudi, a charity he established, in a high court next month. Also in UMNO, partner to Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan coalition, is the ”court cluster” of indicted UMNO politicians left over from the party’s pre-2018 days in power.
By all accounts, however, it was the 69-year-old Zahid who put the coalition together that saved Anwar’s government. It was Zahid who was responsible for engineering the unity government, which includes the east Malaysian Gabungan Parti Sarawak, with 23 parliamentary seats. Also although he had a well-deserved reputation as a Malay nationalist, he stunned UMNO by saying in a campaign speech that race and religion as party planks are now obsolete, and that the policies of inclusiveness and unity are now more relevant than ever before.
“It’s going to be very interesting,” said the longtime analyst. “You can imagine him going to court in January as deputy prime minister complete with motorcycle outriders and flashing red lights and stopping the traffic and Special Branch as protection, then he goes in the courtroom door to face criminal charges.”
As far as anybody knows, Anwar has made no deals to help Zahid evade the criminal charges, which would be difficult in any case given the new generation of judges appointed during the reform government’s 20 months in power that ended with its February 2020 downfall. “Anwar won’t do anything to help him,” the source continued. “But he isn’t going to do anything to help the prosecution either.”
After a few bizarre policy announcements including advocating free sanitary napkins for the country’s 350,000 poor women, and lower ticket prices for football games, the government is having trouble getting untracked although it is likely to beat a parliamentary vote of no confidence. It did announce one major step, the immediate dismissal of all political appointments in the country’s bloated government-linked company sector, which by one account totals 300 highly paid directors, which puts 300 disaffected and unemployed individuals on the street with little to do but scheme against the government.
Arguably one of the new government’s biggest priorities is to reform the country’s education system, which has descended into deep mediocrity on a combination of political loyalty and emphasis on religion over scholastics. Mohamed Khaled Nordin, the minister of higher education, offers little promise for reform. The former UMNO chief minister of Johor, he also chaired Boustead Holdings from 2020 to his resignation in 2021. Boustead is a government-linked company that has participated in major defense ministry boondoggles.
Nor does Fahdilina Sidek, appointed the minister of education, the most crucial education post, inspire confidence. She is the former chief of the women’s branch of Anwar’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat, who formerly specialized in Islamic family law and child welfare and seems unlikely to reform the system toward secular education. She also had her own Sharia law firm, Tetuan Fadhlina Siddiq & Associates.
Anwar has appointed himself finance minister, as Najib Razak did before him, although he has no formal training in economics, having graduated from the University of Malaya with a degree in Malay studies. So far he has announced no serious policy measures. He is considered nonetheless an acolyte of the so-called Washington Consensus, oriented toward the principles of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank. Early indications are that he will be a symbolic leader, but not heard much.
The economy is more likely to be in the hands of economics minister Rafizi Ramli, a chartered accountant and secretary general of Anwar’s PKR who played a major role in exposing UMNO scandals. As such, Rafizi is the man to watch in this administration. This will be a make-or-break for him. If he performs well in the portfolio, he could have a great political career. His style may not go down well with the civil service. We have to wait and see how much of a reformer he will be, and if he works in tandem with his prime minister.
For human rights organizations, the Minister of Home Affairs Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has already thrown up red flags. Saifuddin is an Anwar loyalist from the reformasi days, and is also close to Zahid. He has refused to back away from the repressive “fake news” legislation passed in the waning days of the Barisan Nasional. Saifuddin has been described as Anwar’s and Zahid’s gatekeeper. Although he lost his Kulim-Bandar Baru seat in the recent election, he was brought back as a senator due to his importance to Anwar.
One clear bright spot – although a target of PAS inflammatory rhetoric because he is Chinese – is Anthony Loke Siew Fook, the secretary general of the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party, who has taken over the transportation portfolio and has already begun to engage with the industry.
The civil service is a serious worry, having been eroded for decades by both the so-called Ketuanan Melayu and religious influence. An independent civil service has long been shot through with UMNO loyalists. During the reform coalition’s previous 20 months in power from June 2018 to February 2020, the civil service played a major role in seeking to thwart Pakatan Harapan reforms.
“In the past, the civil service would work to get things done regardless of the politics,” a Malay businessman said. “Now the worry is that there is a corrupt civil service. The coalition has got to clean up the civil service or it is hopeless.”
The Pakatan Harapan coalition’s last stint in government may have taught it something, including that its ministers were largely arrogant and uninformed, and that the civil service was in thrall to UMNO. It is hoped that their lessons have been learned. UMNO, despite its deep corruption, is back in the government as a minority partner. The one thing about the party, as one observer said, is that they knew how to run things. They may be able to impart some lessons to their senior partner in Pakatan Harapan, which also needs to hold them in check.
With reporting from longtime contributor Murray Hunter
The Malay businessman who worried Malaysia's so-called civil service (it's one of the world's most un-civil civil service) is corrupt is behind the times. It's not a new phenomenon but one that's as old as Mahathir's post-1969 politics and Malay "socialist" aka nationalist ideology. It was Mahathir and his regime that had corrupted the uncivil civil service through and through, just as Mahathir's privatisation policy has flooded state enterprises (GLCs) with manic greed and corruption. Most, if not all, of these enterprises are dependent on Malay state nurturing, including bailouts, and economic protection from international competition. One wonders if Rifizi Ramli and Anwar Inrahim, now that they're running the so-called unity government, will openly agree to this view and do something about breaking up this protectionist-corrupt cartelisation of Malaysia's domestic economy. And linked to these enterprises are no less Chinese and Indian enterprises, who feed off Malay economic patronage for government business. Fact is, it's big business. And cutting this corrupt sector to spite its face will come back to bite Anwar (and Rafizi) in the backside.
Zahid Hamidi is a completely untrustworthy fellow who wears different faces for different occasions. But he'll sit by and watch the Malay-dominated in-civil and corrupt civil serve, and the Malay-dominated GLC sector go after Anwar to ensure they're untouchable -- or else. Anwar, for all his his (previous) reformist zeal, is weak, and even weaker by instituting himself in a notoriously haphazard and weak unity government. Like Rafizi Ramli. If Rafizi is a genuine reformist and intends to break up Malay business cartelization that Mahathir and Umno had established, he'd have to grow elephant-size testicles. As long as the "unity government" is maintained, by hook or -- mainly by crook -- Rafizi will be hamstrung for the duration. he may be known as renegade within Pakatan Harapan or Anwar's Parti Keadilan but he'll have to break away from Keadilan and Anwar to take the DAP with him on reforming Malaysia's politics and economy or at least the domestic business sector which, as everybody knows, is full of crooks, standover merchants, the utterly greedy and corrupt and totally incompetent businesspeople.
I suspect Muhyiddin, who like hamidi cannot be trusted one jot, will milk the anemic unity government for all his worth. He now looks like a desperate Mahathir (thankfully Mahathir lost in the most deservedly humiliating way at the last poll). But Muhyiddin knows his time is nearing, too, for his grandiose political Malay-nationalist ambitions or the grave. Just as when he was Malaysia's illegitimate prime minister after the spectacular and shameful collapse of Harapan, he is, like Anwar, in a far weaker position with his lacklustre Bersatu party. Which explains his beholden position to Malaysia Talibanist party PAS.
PAS will look at recruiting the mass of disenchanted Malay unemployed or underemployed. In. the short run this will work for Muhyiddin but in the long run it will have devastating impact on his "leadership" and Bersatu. PAS has the inside track, whether Anwar likes it or not. PAS will want to ensure rural Malays are kept rural, just as Mahathir and his successors had done the same thing, appealing to the rural Malay masses at elections by throwing buckets of taxpayer money to resolve economic livelihood issue but only for the short run. Long run, Mahathir and his successors, especially Najib Razak, wanted to keep rural Malays poor by denying them development funds and access to markets. And the rural folk were happy to see a million mosques and majids and the like built as if religion or Islam will solve their endemic problems. Can't get more stupid and ignorant than this. And neither Anwar nor Rafizi will be able to do the reverse if they know which side of their own Malay-ness roti canai is oiled.
Which means the crazily racist Chinese in Malaysia will become even crankier that they aren't getting the spoils of the Malay state. After all, look at Chinese business structures and links and you'll find they're no more different to Malay crony businesses, except the Chinese are more export-oriented for their revenue whereas the Malay businesses are happy to milk domestic taxpayers and customers to survive (think proton, Boustead, etc).
Where does all this leave Malaysia? Nowhere. Nothing is new. Nothing will be new. Nothing will change. For Malaysia, it's the same old story. Read Malaysian news: always the same story, living on the same diet of race, religion and corruption. To think Malaysia has a bright future is seriously wacky. To think that Anwar will save Malaysia is equally seriously wacky a notion. Or for that matter Rafizi. The employment of ministers via the backdoor of senatorships even after losing their seats is no different that Muhyiddin and his Pengkhianat Nasional regime forming his regime via the backdoor with the king's blessing. It's completely idiotic. But it is what Malaysia is, always has been, always will be. And tediously boring.
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